Wednesday, July 27, 2011

A Year and Change Later

I love Lost.  That is not a surprise.  It is easily my favorite show of all time: the characters, the intricate plot, the mythology, the Star Wars references!  I think in the past few years we have really come to see exactly how special the show is after many attempts to recreate it have fallen flat (See Flash Forward , The Event).

I got the entire Lost series for Christmas this year and have slowly made my way through all six seasons.  This blog entry is going to be a retrospective of the whole series, but through the lens of the finale (read my original review here)

"This is a place that you... that you all made together so that you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people on that island. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you"- Christian Shephard

That quote summarizes the entire series, and at the same time still makes me get a little misty eyed.  To me this quote reflects the true nature of the show.  It was never about the polar bear, or why they had to push the button, or what the Dharma Initiative was doing there.  It was about those people and how such an ordeal, such a brush with the supernatural, shapes them, molds them, brings out their true identity, makes them a complete person.  As Jacob said in the finale: none of them came from a happy life.  But all of the characters became better people.  Jack learned he doesn't have to fix everything.  Kate stopped running by becoming an adoptive mother.  Locke became the leader he wanted to be.  Hurley learned he was not some fat loser, but a loveable, caring, guy who can command people's respect.  Sun and Jin realized just how perfect for each other they really are.  Sawyer became more than a ruthless, selfish con-man.  

The Island was there to make these people whole and that is what the finale and the series was all about.  The sideways universe was a microcosm for the entire show.  When the characters had the big "reveal" in the sideways universe it was because they found that piece from the island that made them the good human beings they were meant to be.  Charlie had a substance abuse problem until Claire and Aaron came along, in both the real world and the sideways world.  Penny's love gave Desmond the motivation to make something out of his life in both timelines.  

My thoughts on the finale itself have not changed watching it again after a year+ later.  My thoughts on the series haven't changed much either.  Watching it in a much more compressed time frame does make me believe that they knew what they were doing from the start.  I saw a lot more connections and a lot more recurring themes that maybe did not have significance the first time around.  And if that isn't proof there was a final destination in mind from the beginning then this certainly is:


No comments:

Post a Comment